New Living Translation NLT
New International Version NIV
15 Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not!
15
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!
16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.
16
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you.
17
But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.
18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.
18
You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19 Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.
19
I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right.
20
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
21 And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom.
21
What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
22 But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life.
22
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.